


God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Deadwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-24
Updated: 2005-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas Eve in Deadwood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman

**Author's Note:**

> Written for septicemic

 

 

Doc Cochran walked into the Gem, looking at no one. It was warm inside, and bright, if unusually quiet. Given his druthers, he wouldn't have been here himself, but he'd come for his necessities of this most holy day.

A whiskey bottle slammed onto the bar in front of him.

"Fucking Christmas," Al said without a smile and walked away. Whether he'd meant it as a curse or a salutation, Cochran couldn't be sure. He looked to Dan who simply nodded and stayed on the other end of the bar cleaning a glass, so he nodded in return, grabbed the bottle, and left.

It was cold. Not the coldest December he'd ever lived through, but the chill went deep into his bones. He clutched his bottle tightly to his chest as he navigated the slick-as-shit planks laid over the frozen and snowy ground.

He remembered a boy on a particular Christmas Eve, round faced and pale, a face that looked like it was used to smiling, but was twisted and screaming when he saw it. After months of marching and the cold and damp getting through his boots, Cochran had needed to cut off his right foot and several of the toes on the left. Not that it had done any good.

He walked past the Grand Central and heard the sound of voices raised in song.

_The people dwell in day, who dwelt  
In death's surrounding night._

Reverend Crane had stayed around, though Deadwood still had no church. Hearst, however, had offered him the Grand Central for services, wanting to hear the Word preached on Christmas Eve, but not liking the idea of freezing his ass off in a tent. Cochran glanced in the window and saw several people there--he noted the stiff back of Sheriff Bullock, his wife still in her mourning black beside him--standing and singing the praises of the newborn child in Bethlehem.

What was his name, the boy with the blackened feet? He couldn't remember. He could still hear the screaming, though. The screams drowned out the chorale song drifting through the glass. Cochran continued on.

The few miners on the streets this time of night paid him no heed, which he was just as glad of. It was unusually, almost unnervingly, quiet. When he'd first come out west, it had been to get away from people, to find some quiet, or at least a place he could kill himself in peace.

After the War, he found he couldn't take the noise of town anymore. Couldn't take the normality of it. He'd come back a drunk, soaked in blood he couldn't ever get off. He just couldn't live in a town where he was expected to stay clean and starched and appear sober at any give time of day. He couldn't look into the face of a child and smile and tell her, "This will only hurt a little."

He couldn't stand the idea of anyone relying on him anymore.

He passed by Star and Bullock's Hardware. He had seen Star hanging bunting around the doorway days before, Bullock standing back with a look on his face that seemed to say his partner was insane.

"It's good for business," Star had shouted cheerily hammering up a fold of cloth as Cochran had passed.

"You're Jewish," Bullock had pointed out, even as he tipped his hat, which the Doc returned.

"I hadn't noticed," Star had said with a smile over his shoulder at his partner.

At the moment, a single light was shining from the backroom of the store. No doubt Mr. Star was hard at work, not observing the season like the rest. Or possibly observing with Trixie, as he couldn't recall having seen her in his brief stop at the Gem.

The wind picked up and cut across his neck, so he in turn picked up his careful pace back to his shack.

When he finally got there, it was much as he'd left it, much as it looked any other time of year. Filled with roots and herbs and ghosts, as usual. The fire was just about out, so he bent to tend to it first before taking off his coat.

He settled down onto his one chair and raised the whiskey bottle to his mouth. He stared into the fire and drank with intent, trying to think of nothing for a while and concentrating only on the illusory burn of the whiskey on the inside and the negligible warmth from his small fire on the outside. The wind was picking up outside, shaking the slats of his shack.

Freezing to death might do the trick. He'd often heard it said that you just went to sleep, floating away on the white. He'd seen a number of people taken out that way, and they'd all looked peaceful. So, if he just stayed here, stopped feeding the fire and drank himself unconscious, maybe it would work.

Unfortunately, his luck didn't run like that. He'd come to Deadwood early on, before there were many people, and hardly anything you'd call a camp, let alone a town. If he'd come for quiet, he'd failed as miserably at that as everything else. As soon as he'd arrived, there was more noise here than anywhere he'd been, a constant hum of activity and movement, day and night. The camp grew to bursting and showed no sign of stopping.

If he'd come to be left alone, he'd missed on that account, too. There was always another whore to see to, always another prospector or merchant. There were always fights. There were always accidents. There were plagues and pestilence to spare, not the least of all the kind that walked on two legs.

If he'd been looking not to kill anyone else, well, he'd always known he was going to fail at that.

He could have simply not hung out his shingle, he supposed. He'd intended not to. But like all his intentions, all his life, it hadn't panned out. He'd come and looked and put out the word he would help, seeing as how there was no one else, and hated himself more and more for it every day.

Besides, he couldn't pay for whiskey with air, and he had neither the mental nor physical fortitude to try his luck at prospecting. Standing in a freezing river up to his ass might have been a fitting punishment, but he hated getting his ankles wet.

There was a knock on his door. He ignored it.

He'd never been brave enough to do himself in. It wasn't the pain he feared, or the eternal retribution from an angry God. Hell, he thought he'd lost all fear of death before he came here. But he'd found he was a coward still, whatever the reason, as he could never raise the gun and just shoot.

The knocking came again.

"We're closed for the season," he shouted as best he could from his position on the floor.

The knock came again, much faster this time, and he sighed. Another Christmas, another failure. He slowly got up, hearing and feeling his bones protest, his head spinning like a top. He was supposed to be left alone tonight. It was Christmas.

He opened the door to see Jewel standing there, smiling, something wrapped in a handkerchief in her hand.

He sighed, not looking forward to this. "I'll get my bag," he said, turning back into the room.

"No, Doc," she said, stepping forward. "There ain't nothing wrong. I just came to bring you something." She held out her package.

"What's this? I already told you, you don't owe me anything for the brace," he said, studying her as she walked into the room, and closing the door against the cold outside. She was being very careful not to overdo it, as she told him every time they saw each other, and he'd seen no sign of further pain from her. She did, however, embrace her increased mobility with a passion, and loved to walk short distances on the errands Al had started handing to her. To get her out of his fucking way for a while, he said.

"It's not about the brace, Doc. It's a present," she said, still holding it out.

"What?" He looked at her, his confusion building.

"It's Christmas. I just wanted to give you a present." She kept smiling and talked more slowly than usual, as if to an idiot child.

He shook his head, backing away. "I don't celebrate Christmas." Which was true. He'd been raised a Quaker, and his family had never fallen in with all that useless frivolity. After the war....

"But I do," Jewel insisted quietly, still holding out the package. "Come on, Doc. You don't want to hurt my feelings, do you?"

He reached out and carefully took the package.

"It's not gonna bite you, Doc," she said with exasperation and what sounded almost like affection. How long since he'd heard that?

He unwrapped the cloth and saw an orange there.

"Johnny bought some oranges by accident," she explained as he stood there, staring at the fruit in his hand. Cochran remembered, he'd had to treat the head injuries Johnny had staggered in with. "Al said we should fucking eat them all and shut up before he shoved them all up Johnny's ass until an orange tree grew out of him."

"Merry fucking Christmas," he muttered to himself and smiled sardonically. Blinking fast, he looked up and realized Jewel was still standing in the doorway. "Well, you might as well come in. You got no business trying to walk through these streets on your own at night."

Jewel laughed. "Afraid I'll be accosted by some ruffians?"

Cochrane snorted. "I'm afraid you'll accost one of our fine citizens," he corrected her and led her closer to the fire.

Strange, how the screaming faded slightly as he stoked the embers and Jewel started to tell him about her day.

\--30--

\--Song lyrics are from an old Scottish psalter called "The Race that Long in Darkness Pined."

 

 

 


End file.
